


Conquering Fear

by howldax



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Pre-Femslash, Pre-Relationship, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 03:30:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17758949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howldax/pseuds/howldax
Summary: Anna does not know what she thinks about the new Killer who has joined their ranks. The others, she knows; the Shape is quiet, Max is loud, Rin is hurting. This one has not spent much time with the others at the campfire, even when there is no trial happening.





	Conquering Fear

**Author's Note:**

> the apiarist is a he/him lesbian! in case there is any confusion as to the f/f categorising :) i have other dbd fics in the works but of course, the huntress/sona fic is the one i've managed to bang a complete work out with... useless lesbian disease :pensive:
> 
> warning for written trypophobia (and the accompanying mild body horror) and insects (bees, specifically). please Please leave feedback and kudos if you enjoy! :>

Anna does not know what she thinks about the new Killer who has joined their ranks. The others, she knows; the Shape is quiet, Max is loud, Rin is hurting. This one has not spent much time with the others at the campfire, even when there is no trial happening.

The Apiarist. It is a word she doesn’t know, one that is hard to say. It has been long enough that she can speak some English, a little Japanese, a couple of words in Spanish even, but this word is not one she has ever heard before. Evan says it is another word for a keeper of bees, but Anna has only ever seen wild bees in the Red Forest. They are small but many, and their bites hurt; she did not bother them where possible. Anna cannot imagine taming their nest, let alone keeping it. Susie has assured her that it is quite common.

The Apiarist’s home is within a maze of plants, trees bending together into long tunnels, shrubbery and grasses clutching at the legs of those who pass through. Abandoned beehives litter the open areas, their wood rotting and splintered, and there is an eerie silence hanging over the place despite its wildness. Where there should be the noise of wildlife scuttling through the undergrowth, birds in the trees, there is only the wind. Even the crows are not here, when it is not a trial. A wilderness without its wild.

Anna moves through the maze with ease, bandaged feet padding across the flattened grass and dirt of the pathways. There are some dead ends, some twisted branches she must climb over, but the forest is her home. Even this unfamiliar one is more welcoming than some of the other locations available in this place. The Doctor’s enclosed Institute echoes her hum back at her, blocks her hatchets with wall after wall, the concrete cold against her when she touches it. The air in the Apiarist’s maze tastes of mulch and cold, in a similar way to the fake Red Forest, and it is comforting.

Anna emerges from an archway of ivy and twisted birch and finds herself in front of a house. It is nothing like hers, solid and towering, but it is also nothing like the houses of the Shape’s map, strong and white and uniform. This is more like a shack, barely more than sheets of corrugated iron pinned to each other. Anna thinks it looks rather sad.

There is a rustle behind her, and Anna whips around, hatchet already raised. The Apiarist stands in the archway she just came through, his hands hovering around his chest. Anna thinks he almost looks nervous. She lowers the hatchet.

“Hello,” says the Apiarist, muffled behind his mask.

“Hello,” Anna says.

“What are you doing here?” the Apiarist asks, and Anna realises suddenly that she does not know. She can see fresh honey smeared across his white suit.

“Honey,” she says. “I wanted to ask you.”

“For… honey?” The Apiarist tilts his head to the side, light glinting briefly off the goggles of his mask. The veil beneath shifts.

“Where does it come from?”

“I make it,” the Apiarist says. “We make it. My bees and I. I suppose they are the creators, and I the vessel.”

“Ah,” Anna says, and resolves to ask Sally what is meant by a ‘vessel’. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Do you want to see?”

“I, ah, do not like bees,” Anna says. “They are – how do you say? Sharp? Little sharp…”

“Stings,” the Apiarist says, moving a little closer. “They’re called stings. My bees won’t sting you without my say so. We’re in complete harmony. Here, let me show you.” The Apiarist reaches out a grime-streaked glove – Anna sees that his hand is small, compared to her own – and guides Anna’s hand to his left arm, which is covered in comb where the shirt is ripped.

“Come out, little ones,” the Apiarist says, and a bee pokes its head out from the honeycomb. Anna goes to take a step back, remembering stings from her youth, but the Apiarist’s grip tightens. “Don’t be afraid,” he says softly. “The little ones won’t hurt you, Huntress.”

Another bee emerges, and then another, and soon too many to count have crawled their way out of his honeycomb skin and are buzzing across his clothed chest, creeping up the veil, circling the two of them in a lazy, bumbling circle. Anna remembers how to breathe, her eyes fixed on one bee as it crawls its way down the Apiarist’s wrist towards Anna’s bare hand.

“They will not hurt you,” the Apiarist says. “Here.”

He shakes his glove a little, the bee taking off and flying off above their heads, and then takes both gloves off and tucks them into his belt. The Apiarist holds out a hand, pale palm up, and slowly the bees begin to congregate there. They seem docile enough, Anna thinks.

“Touch my hand,” the Apiarist says, encouraging. Anna reaches out, hesitant, and lets her fingertips touch the very tip of his middle finger. “Good, good. Now you will see.”

A lone bee leaves the group, clambering up the Apiarist’s fingers and brushing against Anna’s. This time she does not flinch, allowing it to climb carefully onto her hand. It feels like the brush of a delicate fabric more than it feels like a living creature; certainly, this is nothing like the angry stings of the bees Anna disturbed in the Red Forest before she was here. This is soft, gentle. Anna looks into the eyes of the Apiarist’s mask, and it is almost as though she can feel his smile through the metal. Her own scarred lips curl into something nearly a smile.

“Do you see?” the Apiarist murmurs, more bees clambering their steady way from his hand to hers. Their inquisitive exploration is like the softest kisses against her skin. They remind her, oddly, of her mother’s tenderness, a warm little flame in her chest igniting at their touches.

“Yes,” she says, and means it.


End file.
